Why Amy Tan?

In responding to this question from a bus riding friend who saw my book jacket cover, I guess the short answer is, because she makes me think.

I read a lot. Unless I’m at the gym or doing yard work, I’m hardly ever more than arm’s length from a book with an odd scrap of paper marking the furthest reach of my latest reading session.

 I love historical novels (Mitchener, Uris, etc). They tend to be my go-to for vacations or when I have the flu. Baldacci in paperback is good for airplanes because the time required to read one works out to the flight time from Seattle to D.C., deducting time for reading the prep materials for whatever meeting I’m heading toward.

I like to read U.S. Supreme Court dissents when I can get my hands on them. The prevailing opinions are interesting but the dissents usually give a clue to future shifts. Plus, they tend to be written with more passion.

I love biographies. Read one recently about Grace Murray Hopper and several other woman scientists  that was fascinating.  Carl Rowan’s Dream makers, Dream Breakers about the life and times of Thurgood Marshall was great.

I lived for each Harry Potter to come out and I’ve read all of Tolkien, as far as I can tell. Those are nightstand books. Time magazine comes to my mailbox but my reading of it is sporadic, with the result that sometimes I’m reading current affairs and other times reading old news. I love a more in-depth discussion of the topics of the day, which is probably closely related to my love for NPR’s All Things Considered and my disdain for TV ‘news.’

I occasionally pick up a woodworking magazine but these days, doing so just serves to remind me of unused tools gathering dust in the garage so – not so much.

I’m not particularly literary, not in the NewYork nose-in-the-air-we-all-went-to-Swarthmore-and-never-do-our-own-laundry sort of way. I can’t imagine why anyone ever reads F. ScottFitzgerald voluntarily. I refuse to apologize for reading what I read in lieu of what some critic thinks I should read.

So, why Amy Tan?

I can’t read one of her novels straight through. In fact, they’re perfect for the bus. Not because they’re easy to put down when we approach my stop but rather, because I never have to read more than a few pages without having come across something to think about.

The way she uses words makes me stop and think again and again. Words have different meanings, then different nuances within those meanings, overlaid with differences of point of view and context. I can spend the rest of the bus ride and odd moments through the day in rapt contemplation of threads she didn’t actually write down but that she’s tacitly invited me to explore on my own.

I suppose part of my fascination may arise from the cultural chasms between a petite Asian woman and an overfed, pale skinned Occidental male. We come from such vastly different cultural paradigms that being invited so warmly into hers is a treat of a kind I’d never have expected.

So, I’m less than halfway into The Bonesetter’s Daughter but already dreading being done with it. Fortunately, I’m also less than halfway through her titles.

I’ll keep reading Amy Tan. She makes me think.